Erlendur had told the husband about the phone calls and had no idea what to do about that now that she was dead. He felt it was probably best to maintain a discreet silence about them. He heard her voice, heard her desperation and fear and that strange hesitancy, the half-finished sentences that made it hard for him to know what she wanted of him. He sighed heavily and lit up another cigarette.

“What are you thinking?” Elinborg asked.

“Those bloody phone calls,” Erlendur said.

“From her?” Elinborg asked.

“They keep preying on my mind. The last time I spoke to her I was … I was a bit sharp with her.”

“Typical,” Elinborg said.

“I could tell she was suffering but I had the feeling that she was playing some kind of game with me. I didn’t give her enough time. I’m such a crass idiot”

“You couldn’t have changed anything.”

“Excuse me,” the medical officer said. “When did you talk to her?”

He was an older man with whom Erlendur was slightly acquainted.

“Yesterday evening,” Erlendur said.

“You were talking to that woman yesterday evening?”

“Yes.”

“That’s strange.”

“Oh?”

“That woman hasn’t been phoning anyone recently.”

“Really?”

“And certainly not yesterday”

“I’m telling you, she’s called me several times over the past few days.”

“Of course I’m just an ordinary doctor,” the medical officer said. “I’m no expert, but it’s out of the question. Forget it. She’s unrecognisable.”

Erlendur ground his cigarette under his shoe and stared at the medical officer.

“What are you saying?”

“She’s been in the sea for at least two weeks,” the medical officer said. “It’s out of the question that she could have been alive a couple of days ago. Totally impossible. Why do you think they haven’t let her husband see her?”

Erlendur gazed at him, speechless.

“What on earth’s happening?” He sighed and started to walk towards the woman’s body.

“You mean it wasn’t her?” Elinborg said, following on his heel.

“What… ?”

“Who else could it have been?”

“I don’t know.”

“If it wasn’t her who called, who was it?”

Erlendur looked down at the corpse with utter incomprehension. It had been badly battered during its stay in the sea.

“Who was it then?” he groaned. “Who is this woman who’s been calling me and talking to me about… about… What was it she said? I can’t do it ?”

The man who had first complained about the scratches on his car was voluble on the subject of the indifference shown by the police when he originally reported the vandalism. They could not have been less interested, merely wrote a report for the insurance company, and he had heard nothing since. He phoned to find out what progress they were making in catching the bastards who vandalised his car but could never get to speak to anyone who had a clue what was going on.

The man ranted on in the same vein for some time and Sigurdur Oli could not be bothered to interrupt him. He was not really listening; his thoughts were preoccupied with Bergthora and the issue of adoption. After exhaustive tests it had emerged that the problem lay with Bergthora. She could not have children, although she yearned to with all her heart. The whole process had put a severe strain on their relationship, both before they discovered that Bergthora could not have children — after bitter experience and countless visits to specialists — and, not least in the aftermath. Sigurdur Oli felt sure that Bergthora had not yet recovered. He himself had come to the conclusion that “since that’s the way it is’, as he put it to Bergthora, perhaps they should accept the situation and leave it at that. The subject had raised its head again when he came home from work yesterday evening. Bergthora had started saying that, as Sigurdur Oli was well aware, Icelandic couples mainly adopted from South East Asia, India and China.

“I don’t spend as much time thinking about it as you do,” he said as carefully as he could.

“So you don’t care then?” Bergthora asked.

“Of course I care,” Sigurdur Oli said. “I care about your feelings, about our feelings. I just…”

“What?”

“I don’t know if you’re in any state to make a snap decision about adoption. It’s a pretty big step.”

Bergthora took a deep breath.

“We’ll never agree on this,” she said.

“I just feel we need more time to recover and talk it over.”

“Of course, you can have a child any time you like,” Bergthora said cynically.

“What?”

“If you had the slightest interest, which you never have had.”

“Bergthora.”

“You’ve never really been interested, have you?”

Sigurdur Oli did not reply.

“You can find someone else,” Bergthora said, “and have children with her.”

“This is exactly what I mean. You’re not… you can’t discuss it reasonably. Let’s just give it time. It won’t do any harm.”

“Don’t keep telling me what sort of state I’m in,” Bergthora said. “Why do you always have to belittle me?”

“I’m not”

“You always think you’re somehow better than me.”

“I’m not prepared to adopt as matters stand,” he said.

Bergthora stared at him for a long time without saying a word. Then she gave a wan smile.

“Is it because they’re foreign?” she asked. “Coloured? Chinese? Indian? Is that the reason?”

Sigurdur Oli stood up.

“We can’t talk with things as they are,” he said.

“Is that why? You want your children to be Icelandic, do you?”

“Bergthora. Why are you talking like this? Don’t you think I’ve … ?”

“What?”

“Don’t you think I’ve suffered? Don’t you think I was upset when it didn’t work, when we lost the ba-‘ He stopped.

“You never said anything,” Bergthora said.

“What was I supposed to say?” Sigurdur Oli said. “What is it that I’m always supposed to say?”

He started out of his reverie when the man raised his voice.

“Yes, er . . . no, sorry?” Sigurdur Oli said, adrift in his own thoughts.

The owner of the vandalised car glared at him.

“You aren’t even listening to me,” he said in disgust. “It’s always the same story with you cops.”

“I’m sorry, I was just wondering if you saw who did this to your car.”

“I didn’t see anything,” the man said. “I just found it scratched like that.”

“Any idea who could have done it? Someone with a score to settle? Local kids?”

“I have no idea. Isn’t that your job? Isn’t it your job to find the bastard?”

Next Sigurdur Oli had arranged to meet the man’s neighbour, a young woman who studied medicine at the university and rented a small flat in the next-door block. She sat down for a chat, and Sigurdur Oli made an effort to concentrate better than he had when he spoke to the man, who had left in something of a huff.

The woman was about twenty-five and rather fat. Sigurdur Oli had caught a brief glimpse of her kitchen where fast-food packaging predominated.

She told Sigurdur Oli that her car was nothing special but it was still awful to have it scratched like that.

“Why the sudden interest now?” she asked. “Your lot could hardly be bothered to come round when I originally reported the damage.”

“Several other cars have been vandalised,” Sigurdur Oli said. “One belonging to someone from the block of flats next door. We need to put a stop to it.”

“I think I saw them,” the woman said, taking out a packet of cigarettes. The flat stank of smoke.

“Really?” Sigurdur Oli said, watching her light up. He thought of the fast-food packaging in the kitchen and had to remind himself that this woman was studying medicine.

“There were two boys loitering outside,” she said, exhaling smoke. “You see, I was at home when it happened. It was so peculiar. I had to run back inside because I’d forgotten my lunch. I left the car unlocked with the keys in the ignition, something you should never do.”